Applying for Probate (advice appreciated)

[Deluxe1]

We buried both our parents on Monday and now it's time to start sorting things out.

They were not in debt, house owned outright and states in the will it's shared between me, my brother and sisters. House is worth about 100k tops.

So basically we just need to sort the house out and the cash that was left in 2 bank accounts and 2 life insurance policies that were not very much.

I can see you can apply for probate yourself (£225) or my sister in this case as she is the executor of the will or have a solicitor to do it for you.

Has anyone done this themselves and how straight forward was it if so?

Thanks.

 

[montymint]

Honestly if the money isn't super important to you and your siblings, I'd personally pay for and have a solicitor deal with it.

With what you've been through recently I personally feel (and if I were in your shoes) that added stress is probably not needed right now and getting that off the plate might be worth the loss of fees.

However if there is a will, anything listed there should be covered by a grant of probate automatically if memory serves, so getting the house sold shouldn't be a problem pastt you and your siblings needing to agree on price / split etc etc.

 

[Deluxe1]

House won't be getting sold me and my sister will continue to live there.

 

[Pipe & Slippers]

If you don’t mind a bit of admin, and you have the headspace for it, I’d suggest doing it all yourselves - it’s not difficult
Also, it appears that the estate is straightforward, so as long as you don’t anticipate any beneficiary infighting, why not?
If you do have any issues on a particular point, you can always refer to a solicitor on that point only
Starting off by getting a solicitor to administer the estate is going to cost you money - maybe not a big deal since the cost per beneficiary would be smallish - but you effectively lose control of the timetable, which can be very frustrating. You’ll spend more time chasing the solicitor than you would administering the estate yourself

 

[Feek]

We've literally just done this in the last week with my mums estate that's worth a bit more but still under the inheritance tax threshold.

Get all the figures together, make sure it's as accurate as possible and it's a very straightforward process, if you do it yourself you'll save a lot of money. My wife has been dealing with the estate of an aunt recently which was very complicated and way above the threshold so it was done by a solicitor, took a very long time and was expensive.

For a simple estate with no inheritance tax or complications, do it yourself.

 

[Martynt74]

If you do go to a solicitor, keep an eye out on what percentage they take of the overall estate.

I recall when my Grandma died, my mum went through a solicitor and it was only later she realised that tucked away on around page 14 of the contract was a clause allowing them to take around 6% of the estate on top of the fee initially agreed. Hell even when they mentioned it and we went looking through the contract we were bored by page 3 and that was when we had a reason to read it carefully!

From what i believe though it's relatively simple as long as you're fairly methodical.

 

[wonko]

I've done the probate / executor role for both my Dad and Mum, but with support from a local solicitor. It's not particularly hard if you've got the time to do it and are systematic about researching and following the process. One thing to bear in mind though is that it's time consuming and could go on for far longer than you expect, and every time you have to do things it's likely to bring your thoughts back to your loss. So I'd suggest getting a solicitor on board at an agreed rate for advice, but able to take over the process if it gets too much. (With my Uncle's estate we let a solicitor take the lead and it seemingly took forever with lots of chasing of the solicitor - it really depends on how good the solicitor is).

If there's a house involved then I think it's way over the 'small estate' limit and you'll have to get grant of probate (complicated by having to do it separately for your Mum and Dad?) before you have authority to do anything with the estate. Just in terms of assets, you didn't mention pension pots or (employment) death in service insurances - it's an obvious thing but it's important to identify all the assets and there are ways to search for 'lost' policies.

I hope you and your family are managing.

 

[secretspy]

Am sorry for your loss

Personally I found applying for probate myself fairly straight forward as long as you have all the figures you need. My mum used a solicitor for her brother's probate years back and lost a fair bit of money due to their incompetence and had to do most of the leg work herself anyway. When my dad passed my cousin mentioned that we could do it ourselves so we did. It only took me some time as my sister had dealt with some of the finances and then filed the paperwork away somewhere where I couldn't find it. Otherwise it was fairly easy.

When my other uncle passed in 2019 we did probate ourselves again and it was much more straight forward as we'd already been through it before. The gov website is pretty good with proving help guides too.
£225 seems a lot to do it yourself though, I swear for my uncle we only paid £90 (unless I'm thinking of my dad's) but I guess prices are always going up :/

 

[wesimmo]

House won't be getting sold me and my sister will continue to live there.

Sorry for your loss.

But will this complicate things? How are you sorting out the fact that the main asset in the estate won't be sold? Are the 2 siblings who won't live there happy with that arrangement and for how long? If it's not just a case of selling the house and splitting everything 4 ways you may need more legal advice than normal?

 

[Feek]

£225 seems a lot to do it yourself though

That's the current rate.

 

[secretspy]

That's the current rate.

That's crazy how much it's jumped up then. Thinking back I think my dad's was £90 and my uncle's was I believe £120

 

[Usher]

My sister & I did it for our dads estate, it was easy & completed in less than 3 weeks, it involved a house £380,000 but most importantly he had made a will. Don't go near a solicitor because they will string it out and charge a % of the estate. At the probate office the kind & very helpful lady actually asked if we would like it completed asap and a few days later we got the call and all was completed.

 

[booyaka]

Sorry for your loss.

As above - fairly straight forward if your happy with the admin side of things.

 

[panthro]

I thought you only needed to apply for probate when no will was left?

 

[Feek]

I thought you only needed to apply for probate when no will was left?

You thought wrong.

 

[Deluxe1]

Sorry for your loss.

But will this complicate things? How are you sorting out the fact that the main asset in the estate won't be sold? Are the 2 siblings who won't live there happy with that arrangement and for how long? If it's not just a case of selling the house and splitting everything 4 ways you may need more legal advice than normal?

Not sure, our parents wanted the house to stay in the family. My other brother and sister are perfectly fine with us living there (rent free) for the remainder of our lives if that's what it comes to. Then the house will just be sold and the money passed down onto their kids / my nieces and nephews.

Obviously we will be getting that arrangement set in stone in due course so that any of our current or future partners can't try and get a share of the house if one of us die when the other is still living there.

 

[mattyfez]

Obviously we will be getting that arrangement set in stone in due course so that any of our current or future partners can't try and get a share of the house if one of us die when the other is still living there.

This is where you will need a solicitor, you'll need some sort of formal contract drawn up or some sort of joint ownership agreement. You Should all probably make individual wills yourselves too.

 

[peterwalkley]

I thought you only needed to apply for probate when no will was left?

See here: https://www.gov.uk/applying-for-probate

When probate is not needed
You may not need probate if the person who died:

• had jointly owned land, property, shares or money - these will automatically pass to the surviving owners
• only had savings or premium bonds

Contact each asset holder (for example a bank or mortgage company) to find out if you’ll need probate to get access to their assets. Every organisation has its own rules.​

Most of the organisations I dealt with when handling my mum's estate needed to see the grant of probate. The only one that didn't waived it because it was less than £250 in the account.

 

[Quartz]

We buried both our parents on Monday

Sorry to hear that.

I can see you can apply for probate yourself (£225) or my sister in this case as she is the executor of the will or have a solicitor to do it for you.

Your sister has been appointed executor so she needs to do it. She is the person responsible, not you. She can, of course, refuse to be the executor, and then you can step in. Do be aware that an executor is personally responsible.

 

[Parsley]

We've literally just done this in the last week with my mums estate that's worth a bit more but still under the inheritance tax threshold.

Get all the figures together, make sure it's as accurate as possible and it's a very straightforward process, if you do it yourself you'll save a lot of money. My wife has been dealing with the estate of an aunt recently which was very complicated and way above the threshold so it was done by a solicitor, took a very long time and was expensive.

For a simple estate with no inheritance tax or complications, do it yourself.

This, I've recently been through this process and anything involving .gov websites doesn't take too much time or over thinking. If the estate is simple (I'd even say regardless of inheritance tax), I'd suggest doing it yourself. It there are complicated or a lot of assets, or a complicated Will, I'd suggest a solicitor just to save on the stress.

The most awkward part has been involving the Land Registry, everything else was done online but the Land Registry is still old fashioned with paperwork (though there are plenty of resources to help with filling forms in and a quick call to them with any questions does help).

With regards to the Land Registry and ID, being executor makes things far simpler with the Land Reg, as that is a suitable form of identification. If you don't have executor status and you need to jump through a few hoops to satisfy them (and with Covid it certainly came across as being very awkward to me as you can't just walk into one of their offices. Having a professional who you might know sign and witness things is also iffy at the moment).